U.K. Finance Industry To Cut 43,000 Jobs As Grads Shun Sector

The U.K.’s financial industry will lose 43,000 jobs in six months, according to a forecast from the Confederation of British Industry, as companies shrink and reduce costs.

Banks, insurers, asset managers and other finance firms probably cut 25,000 positions in the last three months of 2012 and may eliminate 18,000 jobs in the first quarter of this year, according to a study by Britain’s biggest business lobby group and PricewaterhouseCoopers, published Monday.

The cuts in the U.K. industry will mean about 132,000 financial-services jobs have been lost since the peak in the final quarter of 2008, when it employed about 1 million people, the CBI said.

In addition to firings, bankers have been retiring earlier and younger would-be recruits are shunning finance for less-tainted industries, said Burrowes.

For young professionals, 'it’s not an attractive place to go', he said. Banking and capital markets at his firm, PwC, 'is not a sector they’re attracted to any longer', Kevin Burrowes, U.K. financial-services leader at PwC, said. 'It used to be our most popular sector'.